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4/28/2015

Hot Docs Review: 'The Cult of J.T. Leroy'

The Cult of J.T.
Leroy

(USA, 90 min.)

Dir. Majorie
Stern

Programme:
Nightvisions (International Premiere)

I admit that
might my archive of obscure Canadian film data betrayed me roughly a third of
the way into The Cult of J.T. Leroy.
At some point, I realized that this tale of fictional literary sensation J.T.
Leroy is the same story that inspired the wacky 2008 comedy Who is K.K. Downey? Both
films tell of a hack author who can’t get published and therefore invents the
persona of a young reclusive transsexual drug addict truckstop prostitute. Both
are relatively modest productions, but the difference between The Cult of J.T. Leroy and Who is K.K. Downey is that the former takes
a fascinating subject and explores it in the least interesting way possible while
the latter runs with the silliness of the situation in one goofily eccentric
flick. The former is dull at awkwardly
shot, while the latter is a goofy microbudget lark. The groaner of the two is
the non-fiction version, which doesn’t offer much for anyone familiar with the
story aside from a very thorough explanation of what went down behind the
adored “author” of books like The Heart
is Deceitful Above All Things.

The story of
J.T. Leroy and the sociopath behind the literary phenomenon (putting her name
in the review only rewards her despicable stab at celebrity) is genuinely intriguing
since the ruse is so elaborate that only a truly deranged criminal mastermind
could make it up. The testimony of all the victims who were trapped into the
charismatic web of “J.T. Leroy” is powerful, but the film somewhat betrays them
with its finale that positions J.T.’s alter ego as a crusading warrior of feminism
who manipulated a system that doesn’t publish books by sub-par middle-aged female
writers. Exploiting marginalized groups isn’t something to champion, even if
it’s to prop up another.